Sunday, April 10, 2005

Living in Christchurch I normally don't get the opportunity to see that many NRL games. Once in a blue moon the Wests Tigers use the city as a home venue and last night was one of those times. So myself and a mate thought we'd take the chance to go along, put our rugby union prejudices aside and enjoy the show as they took on the Warriors. Here are a few post match obversations:

1) As a spectacle it's actually better than union as there are relatively few static periods of play (ie rucks, mauls, scrums etc). It's much more fast paced.

2) The Warriors still suck. They may have been sublime last week rattling up 40+ points against South Sydney, but they hardly even looked like breaking the Tiger's line last night.

3) It's interesting to note the Warriors can draw a bigger crowd in Christchurch than they can at home in Auckland. There were 18,000 people at Jade Stadium last night watching the came in a freezing wet southerly. I understand the Warriors have been drawing crowds of about 12-13,000 at Ericcson this season.

4) The Tiger's mascot was a bloody legend. Despite getting complete arseholes from the crowd (including the occasional beer bottle) he played them magnificently. Smoothly twirling his tail in the face of rampant abuse while pointing to the scoreboard to emphasise while the Tigers may be tossers, they were winning tossers.

5) Where was the Warriors mascot? More importantly where were the cheerleaders? How can a bloke got to a manly exhibition of contact sport and not get his fix of nubile nookie at halftime? Somebody stuffed up bigtime.

6) Finally don't wear light cotton pants to a winter game at Jade Stadium when there's a southerly downpour. All circulation is lost below the knees and your legs end up going a funny blue colour. Also don't, for any reason, get out of your seat for you will find it will rapidly fill with water and you'll end up with a frozen arse as well!